The Collaboration of the month is a way to get many contributors working on one article at once, often to get it ready for an upcoming event or a nomination for destination of the month. While anyone can edit any article at any time, this provides a way to highlight specific articles allowing many contributors to help improve them together.

Nominate

Think carefully before making a nomination. A successful collaboration of the month must be more than just an article you would like to see improved. In particular, it's a bad idea to nominate articles that lack enough content—most collaborators won't have intimate knowledge of the destination, although they can do style edits and fill in some of the blanks with very basic research.

Nominations most likely to be collaborative successes are those that have clearly defined areas for improvement, are of interest to a wide range of people, and that are already pretty well developed. Particularly good choices for nomination are articles that could quickly become options for the Destination of the Month, or Off the Beaten Path featured articles.

When nominating, describe exactly what you hope would come of a Collaboration. Explain why you think it would be a successful collaboration. (Not why you would like it improved!) Then leave a list of several bullet points detailing exactly how other contributors can help with the collaboration. The bullet points should be very concrete, and should detail basic tasks that anyone can help with. Collaborative tasks should be geared towards the goal of having a large number of contributors doing a small amount of work. Examples of good collaborative tasks include:

Listingify all the listings (A task that anyone can do in small quantities spread out over the month.)

Fill in basic details for listings (Anyone can spend five minutes on a given day to look up addresses and phone numbers for a small subsection of listings.)

Add images (It is easy enough for an interested collaborator to look up one image on flickr [1] or Wikimedia Commons [2], upload it to shared, and add it to an article in about 10 minutes.)

Copyediting (A lot of articles have issues with basic grammar, spelling, and style, particularly when written by non-native speakers. This is another good task easy to finish when spread out across a number of contributors, each contributing in small chunks.)

Take pains to avoid listing tasks that require either a significant committal of time or in-depth knowledge of the destination from individual contributors:

research beyond basic information (like contact information for a listing),

original writing,

map making (aside from more simple region maps),

devising new districts.

These are tasks for contributors with a special interest in a particular destination, not for contributors simply interested in devoting a small amount of time in support of the collaboration. If these types of tasks are to work, the nominator will have to volunteer to do them, or find someone beforehand who is willing.

Because a month is a long time, and we can get a lot of work done when many contributors are at work, consider whether the tasks for your nomination will take longer than just one week. Huge city articles can be ideal for nominations, as can regions that already have well developed city articles.

Use the following format for nominations:

===[[Chicken]]===
This article has a ton of great content, but is poorly formatted, is full of basic errors,
and most listings lack addresses. Chicken will be the host of the 20XX Winter Olympics, so
it would be useful to get the article into good shape beforehand. There's a lot to be done,
but the work is basic and can be divided easily over many contributors.
*'''Task 1''' — rationale
*'''Task 2''' — rationale
*'''Task 3''' — rationale
*'''Task 4''' — rationale
~~~~

Select

We decide which articles to select for the collaboration of the month through discussion. To weigh in, add your argument next to a bullet point below the nomination. It's also appropriate to suggest here when the article should be featured.

===[[Chicken]]===
This article has a ton of great content, but is poorly formatted, is full of basic errors,
and most listings lack addresses. Chicken will be the host of the 20XX Winter Olympics, so
it would be useful to get the article into good shape beforehand. There's a lot to be done,
but the work is basic and can be divided easily over many contributors.
*'''Task 1''' — rationale
*'''Task 2''' — rationale
*'''Task 3''' — rationale
*'''Task 4''' — rationale
TravelNut 25:25, 31 Feb 2525 (EDT)
* Tasks 2 and 4 are not well suited to collaboration, and the article doesn't have enough
content yet for us to work on. ~~~~

Note that objections must relate only to the nomination's potential for success as a collaboration of the month, not to one's own interest in the destination.

Scheduling

If a nomination has the support of the community, it can simply be added to the upcoming queue at a time deemed appropriate in the nomination discussion. Priority will be given to articles based on the strength of the nomination, urgency of the collaboration (with respect to upcoming large international events), and the goal of ensuring that we have a good balance of collaborations on articles from all parts of the world.

Archiving

Move the nomination entry for previously featured articles to the article's talk page. Strike goals (using <strike></strike> tags) that were accomplished.

Upcoming

Unscheduled nominations

Sadly, as to be expected, very few African destinations are above the "usable" status. Although there have been various African destinations in the OtBP position, I believe only 1 has ever made the main feature category.

Because there is a general outline, it doesn't seem like such a difficult task for people who have NOT been there to contribute to, which is nice for the CotM. I think the main problems are:

Not enough information in the "Understand" and "History" categories (anyone can look up general information like this)

Lacking descriptions of the attractions. (Once again, with attractions listed, descriptions should be easy to add, even for those who don't know the city)

Listingify - phone numbers and such need to be added for current listings.

Formatting. The listings that are already there need to be properly formatted.

Pictures. Even with good information, it's awfully boring with no pictures...

Don't support. All these tasks are good, but I think the article is too short to support a successful cotm. Now a cotm for the whole country of Ghana, on the other hand, is intriguing. We could revamp the confusing regions hierarchy, and we have enough active members of the Wikitravel:Regions Maps Expedition to produce a region map. Proofing and mosing the rest of the country's articles might be an ideal use of a cotm. --PeterTalk 01:09, 21 March 2009 (EDT)

A country feature might be interesting. I suppose it could lead people to update Accra, and other cities, as well. I wonder what others think about featuring the nation instead of the city? ChubbyWimbus 11:31, 22 March 2009 (EDT)

Change for Ghana is a good idea because Accra needs loads of local content. Any objections? jan 10:09, 6 October 2009 (EDT)

My major concern with this nomination is that there is not enough work to be done for a collaboration of the month. I think it would turn into a "collaboration of the day," which would not be good for the cotm project. Perhaps work on this article could be combined with something else? --PeterTalk 00:39, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

It could be combined with nearby Guilin. However, you may be right. There might not be enough work for CotM. Pashley 00:44, 13 March 2009 (EDT)

We can start with official districts set (as defined in Talk:Barcelona#districts_proposal), and if consensus changes at some point later, we can fix that (and re-organize listings respectfully).

Before this article can be nominated, we need either:

to complete a MyMaps mashup for Google Maps where every district is supposed to be shown--as it helps much in finding a right district for each individual district. Currently, it doesn't fully reflect the current consensus (which is following official borders, except not splitting yet Ciutat Vella into sub-districts.

or prepare a static map compliant to our license--which can become an official map at Wikitravel for the whole city and each of its districts

Another thing to do beforehand is to split "MoS proofreading" into smaller and do-able subtasks.

The tasks for this CoTM are:

write up district borders: a street-by-street description of borders for each district, based on the current consensus.

Manual of Style proofreading (identifying subtasks here may be a CoTM task in itself)

answer questions in Talk: help in reaching consensus on at least part of topics in Talk:Barcelona

MoS Stay Safe: it was recently compressed, but not sure the current format is fully MoS-compliant.

Contact: even trivial advice on mobile services would be helpful--especially for those coming to Bcn outside of Europe (traveller SIM cards; choosing a right operator and tarif plan etc)

create an article-local blacklist of apartment agencies--those who repeatedly add themselves. It can be created as a subpage of Talk:Barcelona. and easily derived from history of reverts in Barcelona. It will make easier to prune frequently re-added agencies that violates our policy.

Support I've proposed Barcelona for next month (August). Is it ready? ChubbyWimbus 23:02, 18 July 2009 (EDT)

No, it's not ready yet. We still don't have a districts map; MoS proofreading is not splitted (help anyone?). As for the map of the districts, pitifully I'm not sure I'll find enough time in the nearest 10 days to complete it in GoogleMaps -- but I can give out full control over it if someone is willing to help. Alternatively, fully-compliant static map would be of huge help, as CotM won't make sense without any map at all. --DenisYurkin 16:26, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

I have removed Barcelona from the upcoming collaborations list above however, when things are sorted out and you feel it is ready for the collaboration, put it anywhere you like! There is little support for the other collaborations, so Barcelona should take precedence unless new contributors or nominations arrive with great support. ChubbyWimbus 21:21, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

I have to admit that I am giving up creating a precise MyMaps which will show district borders on Google Maps exactly as they are schemed under the links from Talk:Barcelona#districts proposal.

I don't want to remain a stopper for this CotM any more, therefore I'm ready to hand the respective MyMaps to any number of contributors who are willing to complete this step (which still looks most logical thing to start with on CotM). If someone find it helpful, we'd better also complete Talk:Barcelona#street-by-street description of borders--but I don't feel like I'm able to finish it (so feel free to plunge forward).

If someone is interested in completing the maps before proceeding with the rest:

a) please drop me your emails to [email protected], stating your email (ideally @gmail) and provide a link to your userpage at Wikitravel so I can associate the former with the latter. I will send an invitation to edit the map in Google MyMaps that I created (but never completed).

b) I can update the CotM tasks as I understand them from the current perspective.

I've patched up most of the ends addressed in the previous, unsuccessful nomination. Because this is the world's second most visited theme park destination, I think it's deserving of being a guide or even star. Jonathan 784 14:48, 10 November 2009 (EST)

Jpatokal says the lead image is "terrible". What would a more appropriate image be?

ChubbyWimbus says the See/Do section should be like those in the Walt Disney World sub-pages. But I'm not sure if that's a good idea, namely, in that it might make the article too long, to the extent that we need to districtfy the article, which I think just isn't right considering how small this place is.

Inas wants a subsection comparing TDR to the American parks. But I don't know where that should fit or if it's even necessary.

Whipping the world's largest city into shape won't be an easy task, but I've been really impressed by the total transformation at Kyoto and I think we have a fair chance with this team. To-do list, roughly in order of importance:

Finally sort out the districting once and for all (this is a biggie, and pending since at least 2007)

Draw up an overall map and locator maps for the districts

Adding addresses, directions and Japanese names to entries

Lots of nitty-gritty formatting work

I'll be in Tokyo again in late Sept and will be able to put in some grunt work if we can get the districts figured out by then. Jpatokal 00:08, 25 July 2009 (EDT)

Support A well-organized Tokyo guide would do wonders for all of Wikitravel's Japanese guides! I unfortunately have barely been to Tokyo, so I can't contribute to the districtification discussion. There seem to be many contributors who have been here, though. Hopefully they will offer their support and time to finally getting Tokyo up to standard. This collaboration has a lot of potential, and I do hope people will get on board for this one! ChubbyWimbus 21:18, 28 July 2009 (EDT)

Support I've been away from Wikitravel for a long time due to work, but I hope it's not too late to cast another vote in favour of this proposal. Some of the individual district articles need a serious sprucing up, and I'll do what I can to add entries and edit existing ones. --Diego de Manila 18:40, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Support. (How did I miss this the first time around?) Perhaps we should start negotiating the districts well in advance – even considering the very different situation here, I think it helped us a great deal for Kyoto by making that an early task. Also, gaining some momentum should serve to guilt-trip me into finishing my own albatross! — Dguillaime 01:54, 5 October 2009 (EDT)

Since we are approaching the next month, I think it's good to get updates: Is Tokyo ready to be the November CotM? It is up for next month, but if you'd like to hold it off, it would be good to say so, and pledge support for a different nomination. ChubbyWimbus 00:26, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

Nice, although I wonder if we know enough about some of these sites to make the best redirects. Some may be better redlinked until someone familiar with the area is able to place them. ChubbyWimbus 16:56, 18 December 2009 (EST)

My experience so far with Wikitravel tells me that anon. users are more likely to go to the relevant talk and call us idiots for redirecting to a said city, than actually go fix that long list. And I believe for the vast vast majority it should be quite easy (if a bit tedious) to look up that information. --Stefan (sertmann)talk 17:09, 18 December 2009 (EST)

This expedition moves along only when people are up to doing the research. The research usually isn't too tough, though, and if we have a good cotm going, we can lean on each other when in doubt. --PeterTalk 18:17, 18 December 2009 (EST)

Update Country See and Do Sections

A while ago it was agreed upon that countries need "See" and "Do" sections. Now however, we have many country articles with loads of information but nothing or near nothing in their "See" and/or "Do" sections. Like some of the other current nominations, this would require a little research, BUT the countries are not at all untraveled nations. Look at France, Japan, Brazil, Spain, South Africa, etc. Such a weak section moves countries like South Korea from guide status to outline status (although it is still listed as a guide). It's silly to lower their statuses when we could add the information. ChubbyWimbus 04:31, 20 December 2009 (EST)

I think this could indeed be a useful CotM—it's not too hard to identify a country's main attractions and come up with a paragraph or two to describe/link them. I would add, though, that South Korea would still be at outline status until the country's major cities and other destinations are all at usable status or better ;) --PeterTalk 14:47, 20 December 2009 (EST)

Support. A good list of tasks, but I think we should make a list of some exact countries (or continents maybe), so we have better focus of which are done and which still have to be done.

Also I think we could include that all countries must have a list of nine cities and nine 'other destinations'. Some of those are quite messed up (just look at Italy, France, Germany, etc.) globe-trotter 12:32, 3 January 2010 (EST)

Support. Maybe we should make a table with countries in rows and tasks in colomns to keep track of our progress. ClausHansen 13:53, 3 January 2010 (EST)

I was appalled when I found France, the most visited country in the world, has such a shamefully messy and poor article. This should be a good candidate for CotM as nearly all tasks do not require local knowledge.

Pictures-There is ONE picture in this entire article!!!!!!!!! As colorful and scenic as this country is, I can't believe there's just one picture. I'm sure there's plenty of pictures in various city articles to use here. The challenge is ensuring all regions are represented and it's not all pictures of Paris.

I have started collecting images from other French articles. Have done North west, North East and Ile de France so far. It will probably be a bit excessive, but it will be easy to cut down later. • • • Peter (Southwood)Talk 04:28, 21 January 2011 (EST)

Get In-By plane: could use a little more info for non-Paris airports (ie. Marseilles has lots of flights to French territories & former colonies, Nice & Lyon have service from US, etc); By train: maybe have a sentence or two about SNCF/Eurostar then sub-headers/paragraphs for "To UK", "To Benelux", "To Germany", "To Italy", & "To Spain" (it seems some of this info is in the Get around/by train section); needs a "By boat" section concerning travel to/from UK and (I think) Corsica as well as Mediterranean cruises; needs "By car" section maybe listing major highways to neighboring countries as well as how to get vehicles across "La Manche" (English Channel). It would also be nice to see this section (as well as the rest of the article) reflect the fact that Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique, & French Guiana are as integral a part of France as Hawaii is to the US or Canary Islands to Spain.

Get Around-By plane: a list of every airline and destination is unnecessary, needs to list general info about internal flights (perhaps tips on how to get cheap flights); By car: info on car rentals would be nice;

Talk & Eat cleanup-These sections need just a little cleaning up

See/Do-shamefully nonexistant

Learn-Discuss "study abroad" options within France and maybe list places to learn French like Russian in the Russia article.

Buy-Vacations: bleong under "understand"; what things should a traveller buy to take home?; Money: remove some non France-specific stuff; expand "stores" section.

06:22, 21 December 2009 (EST)

Our France coverage is pretty weak on all levels. The "Other destinations" seem to make good headers for the Provincial articles. I'd suggest moving those to the provinces they describe. I will support with the disclaimer that I don't know much about France, so I don't know if I will be useful for this one. ChubbyWimbus 15:49, 21 December 2009 (EST)

Support A bad coverage on one of the greatest destinations in the world.--Tiagox2 07:19, 17 October 2010 (EDT)

Strong Support I agree we should add pictures and places to see/do Sumone10154 14:54, 20 January 2011 (EST)

Host to the Olympics in 2016 and, before that, to many World Cup games, including the final, in 2014, so we have some time to get our act together. And despite the fact that it is full of useful information there is still lots to be done:

A map. First, we need a good map to make clear the borders of the various zones, apart from anything else.

Beaches. Instead of just listing the beaches, say something about them. The list does seem to be in north-south sequence, which is a start.

Sights, buildings, museums, parks, etc.. Do these belong on the main page or in the pages on the Zones? At present there is a lot of duplication. Summaries on the main page I think, with more detailed info and links on the Zone pages.

Hotels need to be moved to the Zone pages.

The zone articles all need to be beefed up. Zona Oeste needs to follow Wikitravel style.

Gaps. There are some gaps. Much more needs to be said about Floresta da Tijuca for example.

With a Carioca wife and a Carioca colleague I can probably help out quite a bit, although I have no immediate plans to visit Rio. Shep 13:42, 4 January 2010 (EST)

Istanbul can make a wonderful DotM, I guess (and it's one of the Capitals of Culture of Europe in 2010), but it needs a little bit of cleaning beforehand.

Many listings throughout the district articles need to be listingified. Adding missing addresses, contact info, etc would also be nice.

Listings in the articles should be alphabetized when appropriate (but I wouldn't want Hagia Sophia, for example, go lost under piles of less important listings just because it doesn't have a name starting with A).

"See" section of main article badly needs some more prose, perhaps with short descriptions of major attractions in the city.

"Walking tours" section of "Do" can be re-shaped, moved into respective districts, and replaced with some blurb.

Listings at "Buy" section of main article should be moved to districts and replaced with a prose about shopping scene in the city.

"Eat", "Drink", and "Sleep" sections of main article can make use of longer explanations about the general scenes in the city.

Some internet cafe listings, which can be searched through the web, should be added to districts (though how reliable the search results are open to debate—they may very well return establishments that are long closed or having crappy connections/computers).

Burmesedays has started to organize the regions and is working on the map. I'm trying to put in some new destinations. Can we all have a go at this fascinating but poorly covered (by Wikitravel) country? Shep 14:53, 5 May 2010 (EDT)

As much as I really want our dreadful PNG coverage to be improved, I am not sure it would work as a broad collaboration. Most of the work required is not routine and will need at least some knowledge of the country. Better I would suggest is you, I and any other interested parties just push on with the work.--Burmesedays 22:28, 5 May 2010 (EDT)